Dec 15, 2006 By Mike Ciarochi 3 min read

Uniontown fought back from a 10-point halftime deficit twice in the third quarter, but Norwin was too strong down the stretch in the Lady Knights’ 64-53 win over the Lady Raiders in the Section 1-AAAA opener for both teams Thursday at Uniontown. The Lady Raiders never led in their return to Class AAAA action. Uniontown made the PIAA playoffs as a Class AAA entry last season. But they returned to the state’s highest classification against a top-five ranked team in Norwin, which won the last two Section 1-AAAA titles.

Despite never leading, the Lady Raiders made Norwin earn its fourth win in six games. The Lady Knights opened a 32-22 halftime lead, but Uniontown came out of the locker room hot and scored the half’s first eight points to cut Norwin’s lead to 30-28. The Lady Knights stretched it back out to 38-32, but a 5-0 Uniontown run made it 38-37 with three minutes left in the third quarter.

“Our defensive pressure got us back in the game in the third quarter,” Uniontown coach Jason Winfrey said. “Then, for some reason, we lost our focus and started fouling.”

The fouls, as they often do, sent the Lady Knights to the foul line, where Norwin canned 20 of 26 on the night. Norwin scored the next six, all from the foul line to boost its lead to 44-37. A Mallory Sanner basket at the buzzer trimmed the Lady Knights’ lead to 44-39 heading into the last eight minutes.

Norwin weathered the Lady Raider storm without using a time out, which Lady Knights coach Bob Shrader said is characteristic of him.

“I’m a time out horder,” he said. “In a close game, I like to have plenty of timeouts down the stretch.”

Also, Shrader has confidence in his team. He made an adjustment that worked to perfection in the last quarter.

“We changed our alignment,” he said. “We went to a 1-4 high, which opened the middle for us. Uniontown was putting a lot of pressure on our guards and caused some turnovers, so we wanted to adjust and open up the middle a little bit.”

It opened the middle enough for the Lady Knights to score the game’s next 10 points, which build their lead to 54-39 with five minutes remaining.

“I’m happy with the way we responded there in the third quarter and to open the fourth,” Shrader said. “We’re a very young team, but it showed a lot of poise in that situation, in a close game on the road in the first section game.”

Shrader starts a freshman and two sophomores and brings another freshman off the bench quickly. He’s also playing without his best player, junior forward Lindsey Loutsenhizer, who has a meniscus injury and will miss the season.

Uniontown also was without a starter. Junior guard Annie Hodge will miss the season with a knee injury.

“Uniontown was a bit of an unknown because they haven’t been in our section for a while, but we knew they were in the PIAA playoffs last year,” Shrader said. “We put a lot of emphasis on section games, but so do they and you can tell. They played the game hard and really got physical with us. They can beat any team in our section.”

Emily Duncan and Kayla Hilka paced Norwin with 16 points each and Michelle Springer added 10. Lawren Davis led Uniontown (3-2) with 15 points and Cherese Hodge added 13.